Before he was sentenced to death on Wednesday, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apologized in court for his role in the attack and its aftermath that claimed four lives and injured 264.
But few in Boston, from the survivors of the April 15, 2013 attack to the city's streets, were impressed by the 21-year-old man's words.
“I regret ever wanting to hear him speak, because he showed no remorse, no regret,” said Lynn Julian, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in the bombing and still lives near the site of the blasts. “He threw in an apology to the survivors that seemed insincere.”
Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen who immigrated to the United States with his family a decade before the attack, began his remarks on Wednesday by noting that it was the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a time of forgiveness, before going on to apologize and ask for blessings on his victims.
He said that he had been moved during his trial when he learned about the lives of the four people killed and 264 injured in the bombing and its chaotic aftermath. The bombing was one of the highest-profile attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
“You told me how horrendous this was, this burden that I put you through,” Tsarnaev said in a soft, lightly accented voice. “I ask Allah to bestow his mercy upon those who are here today.”
Prosecutors showed evidence during the trial that the Tsarnaev brothers were adherents of al-Qaeda's militant Islamist philosophy and said the pair carried out their attack to “punish America.”
Scott Weisberg, a physician from Birmingham, Alabama, who was among two dozen people who spoke about the attack's toll on their lives in court, was also unmoved by Tsarnaev's statement.
“He said that he was remorseful, and I find that hard to believe, since I have come to a lot of the trial and never really saw that at all from him,” Weisberg said. “That's not going to change my impression of him.”
A Boston electrician waiting for a train at the South Station transit hub laughed when asked if he was moved by Tsarnaev's apology.
“I really don't think anything he says at this point can have an effect,” said Matt Schulze, 31. “The guy blew people up. I don't want to hear, 'I'm sorry.' I want him in a dark hole.”
As a legal matter, the apology came too late to have much bearing on the process, said Michael Casssidy, a Boston College Law School professor. U.S. District Judge George O'Toole had no choice on Wednesday but to impose the death sentence the jury had voted for in May.
“It is too bad Tsarnaev did not testify in this fashion during the punishment stage of the trial,” Cassidy said. “Such a display of remorse, recognition of damage, and request for mercy may have spared him the death penalty.”
Not everyone who heard Tsarnaev's words was unmoved.
Henry Borgard, who had been walking past the race's finish line when the bombs went off, on Wednesday discussed the psychological toll of the blast in court.
“I made the mistake of looking over at him as I was giving my statement and he was looking right over at me, which was a little disconcerting,” said Borgard, accompanied by the service dog that helps him cope with post-traumatic stress disorder. “When I made eye contact with him, it wasn't like looking in the face of a criminal; it was like looking in the face of a boy.”
Borgard, who at 23 is just two years older than Tsarnaev, said he forgave him.
“I'm going to take it on faith that what he said was genuine,” Borgard said. “Some of it was hard to hear, but I really was profoundly affected.”
